(Note: This documents a business trip I took to China in 2008. I thought it was "interesting" enough for me to post here. Enjoy.)
OK. I could also call this my China Vacation as Mike called it but think "Chevy Chase". Now this is rather long, but I recommend that you read it so that you can experience what I am experiencing over here while you are back, safe and sound, at your desk reading this. After all. I am on my second week in Asia, having spent the last week in Taiwan and weekend in Hong Kong. I deserve a little respect.
I've been in China for 2 days now. I had a very long day with a large manufacturer picking me up in HK on Monday.
I was all set and drove 1.5 hours, through HK customs and then China customs as I made my way to Shenzhen China.
It was great because this manufacturer sent a minivan to pick me up in HK. Turns out that Phil the VP that I was meeting with actually lives in HK.
After spending all day with Phil and the rest of the team, throughout the day they kept on asking me if I was interested in purchasing something. Maybe some DVDs or something. Well, after asking me several times if I wanted some, I agreed. OK. Lets go.
So I get whisked away to a small town outside of the factory where we snake our way through the streets, honking horns, almost running over people...
Amazing. They actually drive like this. There is no rhyme or reason. They ignore traffic lights, stop signs... whatever. It is really the wild wild west of the automotive age. They have perfected the use of the horn honking since they use it at every intersection or every time they are passing a car, bike, person walking, dog...whatever. They honk it at times just to make sure that it still works.
So we pull up to this shop and basically park the car. As I'm getting out, a car is honking his horn cause I'm in the way. No problem. I decide to kiss the van with my body so that I can let him by. That's when the fun begins. I go into this shop and we go through a back door behind the cash register. Oh. The secret room. So I go upstairs with Phil and Candace and here is another room that has the real stash of DVDs. Everything from Ironman that is now coming out to every WII game, PSP game...etc.
I then pick up my collection and we head downstairs to purchase the items at the cash register. Then it hits me. Why hide the stuff upstairs if you have to bring it back down to purchase it at the cash register right in open view?
So after buying $Y200 Yuan's worth ($26) I walk out of the DVD store into the car. On the way back, I ask to stop and get $Y100 (13 bucks) of a phone card so I can fill up my China Sim card. Good thing since I needed it for the calls I was going to get (more on that later). I get dropped off at the hotel and once I get checked in, my hosts leave promising that the driver will come back the next day at 8:30am to pick me up. No problem.
I check into my "non-smoking", smoking room and quickly turn on the air conditioner to air out the room and cool it down. It's hot. Even though I set the air conditioner on 70 degrees, it never really cooled down all night long.
I wake up the next morning to start my adventure; Actually my adventure started earlier than that. Much earlier at around 1:45AM with a phone call on my spanking newly filled up phone SIM card but that's another story.
So I wake up and get ready for breakfast. I go down to have breakfast. Searching for the eggs and such. No such luck. I find French toast (filled with peanut butter), cooked tomatoes (good), lettuce (salad for breakfast?), noodles (too early for that), and a bunch of other things that I would rather not describe.
I put spread on my French bread, thinking it was butter, and it turned out to be banana cream filling of some sort. Yuk. I had enough thank you very much.
So I go upstairs, get my stuff and check out. Waiting for my pickup. The driver shows up and takes me to the factory where we are dodging people like a pinball in a pinball machine.
I get to the door and nobody is there. I get my shoes (imagine doctor slippers that you get when you are going into the operating room) and go up 5 flight of stairs.
Normally, someone is supposed to be there at the guard's desk to walk me up the stairs but nobody is there. So I take my blue "ruby" slippers, put them on,and off I go up the stairs. I arrive to the "locked" door and pull out my trusty cell to call when all of a sudden, here comes Candace.
She opens the door and says that she is glad to see me.
So I spent the day with them and am told that I am going to the airport at 4PM for my 7PM flight. The driver is the same driver that has been schlepping me around for the past couple of days. Nice guy. Does not speak a word of English :-) So I notice that he decides to put on his seat belt as we are leaving the factory and I figure, time for more pinball. I put mine on as well.
The airport is 45 min away and after some more dodging, we get on the interstate (with tolls!) and get to the airport on time.
As I am getting dropped off, I decide to give the driver $Y100 smackers ($13 bucks) for all of his efforts over the past 2 days. He refuses and we play a game of take it/leave it/take it/leave it until I finally convince him to take my money. I say thank you and he watches me go into the airport. Cool. Plenty of time. Or so I thought.
I make my way to the counter and as I'm reading my Expedia paperwork to find my flight, I catch the note that says, confirm your flight 24 hours in advance. Oh crap. I go to the display board to find my flight. Since I'm a few hours early, I figure it is not on there. So I wait about 10 minutes and then the time shows up. No flight. What? Panic sets in. Ok. so I can do this, I walk over to the ticket agent and he says "can I see your passport?" and "sir, your flight has been cancelled but no problem. I put you on the earlier flight at 5:30. Good.
I look at my watch and it says 5:05pm. 25 minutes to get my ticket, check my bag, go through security, get to my gate... I don't even know where to begin. He says go to ticket booth 13 and you can get your new ticket and check your luggage. There is something both exhilarating and scary that happens. I like the challenge of trying to figure this out but at the same time I am really freaked out about missing my flight and not having an alternative way to get to where I'm going. It's 3 hours away!
OK. so I go to 13 and it is closed. 14 is open, and so is 12 but 13 is closed. 12 is for Biz Class, and 14 is economy and it has 7 people in front of me. I have an economy ticket so I just get into the economy line. I wait, wait, wait. and then my turn. No problem. I walk up to the ticket booth and look up. Guess what. I can't understand at all what it says. So I say, "yes, I was on a later flight but it was cancelled. the agent says I am now on this flight". "Can I see your passport?" Ok. NP.
So then I get my ticket and go through the guards and up to the screening station. Panic sets in again, when I have my bottle of water in my hand and there were 3 signs that I passed that said throw it out. So I give it to the security lady, give my notebook and walk through security. When I get to the other side of the x-ray, they decide that I look suspicious and want to check my bag. No problem. Nothing to hide. OH Crap. The DVDS! Oh yeah.
Wrong bag. They pull out every bit of junk in my briefcase (note to self - get rid of the crap in the briefcase) and run it again. No problem. I load up and off to my gate. Wait. What gate am I at?
I can't interpret this ticket. Can't find my gate. Can't see the flight number on the board. OK. Someone helps me and then I look. There it is.
Plain as day. It magically appeared. Gate 36. I go to gate 36 and when I get there it is 5:30 on the dot.
No problem. But no plane. OK I have time to call Emmy cause she has arranged for me to have a pickup at 10PM. But I get there at least an hour earlier. So I have to call her. I dial the phone number from my trusty cell phone (good thing I got that SIM card) and ring, ring, ring, disconnect. Try again. Same result.
OK, I have to get a hold of her somehow. So I try her office line. They don't have voice mail! After several rings, disconnect. Let me see. Maybe the airport has Wi-Fi? OK so I pull out my lap top and behold. Wi-Fi. And Free as well!
So I quickly burst out an email to Emmy and tell her about my flight change. About 10 minutes later, as I finished chomping on a granola bar and loading on a shuttle bus to my plane, the phone rings. It's Emmy. She got my message. No problem, she will contact the driver. Whew. Problem resolved.
So I board my plan and it is a mad rush off of the shuttle bus. Everybody merges like 50 people rushing to the plane and then it goes to a single file at the agent getting the ticket again. Imagine seeing 50 cars side by side merging onto a single lane highway. What, no passport? I'm offended. So I get on the plane and get settled in. We take off.
As we are climbing to 25K feet, I start to think, cool. I can see the great wall of China. I start thinking Mulan and stuff and then it hits me. What if they play pinball up here as well? Oh crap. I'm gonna die. After a while, I relax. No problem. The captain is actually really good.
Note: For those of you that have never been to China, it is smoggy, due to all of the cars and population. Do you know what it looks like at 25K feet?
THE SAME THING. I can't see a thing. So much for my great wall experience.
So, here I am on the plane, eating what I'm being told is "beef" and heading to Tianjin to get picked up by another driver that doesn't speak a lick of English so I can get dropped off at my hotel. It's a holiday inn this time and I am sure that they have a no smoking room. Yeah right. Just wondering what my adventure will look like next.
That concludes my first 36 hours of China. Stay tuned.
(Note: For what it is worth, I had a guilty conscious about the DVD's I bought so I ended up trashing them in the hotel basket before I checked out. It was definitely not worth the hassle nor the risk of getting stopped at Customs for it. But it was definitely an interesting experience.)
